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A while ago Pure Spec helped host and organize a BBQ in Hawrelak Park for various nerd groups around Edmonton. It was a potluck, casual affair, where the many flavours of Edmonton geekdom could get together, maybe toss around a Frisbee, play some games, eat BBQ, and hang out in the fresh air for a while. A few years back, however, we stopped organizing it because we just didn’t have the organizer bandwidth to carry it out any more.

So I am delighted to report that the Internerd BBQ will return at the 2018 Pure Speculation Festival! Saturday night, starting at 6pm, we’ll move the festivities to the Alberta Avenue Hall’s back garden. Everyone at the festival is invited: attendees, volunteers, panelists, vendors, everyone. This is your chance to relax with your fellow nerds after an already great weekend of nerdery. And if you couldn’t make it to anything else, arguably this is an event not to miss.

We’ll supply the hot dogs (and veggie dogs) for free, condiments, paper plates, and napkins, and our concession and bar will be open for business. The rest of the food will be potluck, in the spirit of our past Internerds, so if you want to contribute feel free to bring a dish to share for about 8-10 people. We encourage you to sign-up with what you’re bringing, so we can avoid having twenty bags of the same chips, or one bag of chips and nineteen different dips.

We’ll also have some entertainment for you, and the Second Annual Pure Speculation Ultimate SF&F Quiz (this year with a trophy for the winner and prizes for the top three finishers). If you took part in last year’s SF&F Quiz you know it’s going to be a tough one, so start brushing up on your lore now.

Seating is extremely limited in the garden, as no indoor chairs can be used on the lawn. We’ll have a space indoors to sit and eat, but if you’d rather sit outside in the fresh air please bring a lawnchair or blanket for sitting.

As always, if you have any questions about our events, shoot us a message. We’d love to hear from you!

In case you missed any of the posts on Facebook, we are back, Edmonton! We’re busy gearing up for June as we speak, and this year is going to be a huge celebration of Edmonton’s science fiction and fantasy nerdery! We have new events coupled with the return of some old favourites (Internerd BBQ, anyone?), all packed together in the Alberta Avenue Community Hall. And attendance is still free.

We are still looking for folks to take part and help us put on a great celebration. There are many ways to get involved:

Volunteer: Our volunteers are the backbone of the festival, and we couldn’t do what we do without them. If you’d like to help out, even for just a few hours, consider filling out the volunteer form and joining our team!

Panelist or Presenter: Have a nerdy topic you want to talk about? Are you an author looking to show off your work to an appreciative crowd? Have a geeky talent you’d like to demonstrate or teach? We want you! Fill out the event proposal form and let us know something about yourself and your event idea, and become part of the celebration!

Artist or Vendor: Do you make or sell something local nerds will love? We want to hear from you! Fill out the vendor application form and secure your spot in our Merchant Hall. (Hurry! Of the 25 available spots, only 8 are currently left, and that number may drop very soon!)

And of course the last, and arguably the best, way to be part of the festival is to attend! Grab some friends and come on down, have lunch, take in a panel or two, play a game, see some demos, get your face painted, pick up some nerdy swag and books…there is so much to do, packed into a day-and-a-half.

In the meantime, keep checking the website for updates. And look for our posters, popping up all over Edmonton.

The Goblin King (Peter Daly) serenades the crowd on our open mic. Photo courtesy of Ron Sannachan.

Pure Speculation Festival 2017 is in the can for another year, and myself and the other organizers are taking a well deserved rest. But don’t worry, we’ll be back at it soon enough with the first of our smaller events coming at the end of September.

Thank-yous are in order, many, many thank-yous. This festival could not happen without the involvement of many people, so I want to take a moment to thank:

The vendors and artists who filled our main hall, and took a chance that our little festival would be a worthwhile venture for them. Several of you have told me that the weekend was successful for you, which is gratifying. More so, a few of you have already asked for tables next year, so thank-you for that;

(L to R) Ann Marston, Vanessa Cardui, and Barb Galler-Smith wrap up a day of panels with the GoH Megapanel. Photo courtesy of Ron Sannachan.

Our Guests of Honour: Ann Marston, Barb Galler-Smith, and Vanessa Cardui. The three of them were the jewels in a somewhat rough hewn crown, and I’m so pleased that we were able to feature them this year;

Our panelists, who took the time to fill our empty rooms with shared nerdery;

Our good friends of the Festival, On Spec Magazine and Edmonton Nerd List, for being so active and vocal in your support of our event. It means the world that On Spec is still with us, and that Nerd List whole-heartedly embraced us;

The volunteers who helped the festival run smoothly. We hope the muffins and the fun made it worth while, and I owe you all a volunteer thank-you party (details coming soon);

To the Alberta Avenue Community League for hosting us amidst their renovations. We were very happy in our new home, and I look forward to next year with anticipation;

To my fellow organizers. Thank-you for the hard work, especially once we arrived at the venue. You should all be proud of this thing we built together;

And finally, a huge thank-you to everyone who came out to enjoy the festival, took in some panels, bought something in the dealer hall, maybe picked up a membership. This festival is all for you, and I cannot tell you how gratifying it is that so many of you came out and enjoyed the event. I hope we continue to give you a festival you can enjoy for many years to come.

Stay tuned, Spectacles! We have plenty more nerdery to share with you through the year.

Three days! Three short days… Whoo, is the room spinning for anyone else?

Seriously, we’re looking forward to the festival and we’re excited to run it for the first time during the summer. Not having to factor snow-fall into our planning has made a big difference (though it’s the prairies, so who knows). The weather this weekend is looking good, and even if the projected showers happen, it will still be a mostly sunny day that is not, and I cannot stress this enough, below zero.

We’ve updated the schedule and the website, and have been diligently working behind the scenes putting everything in place for this weekend. If you haven’t checked things out in a while, I recommend taking another look so you don’t accidentally miss anything.

In the first of many thank-yous, I want to say thank-you to our organizers and volunteers. Without the involvement of our volunteers in both the planning and execution of the festival, we wouldn’t be able to do what we do. We’re still looking for a few more volunteers just to round out the schedule for this year, so if you’re interested in helping out and getting in on the Muffins for Minions(TM) program, please fill out our Volunteer form. We’ll put you to work!

Thank-you to our Guests of Honour: Ann Marston, Barb Galler-Smith and Vanessa Cardui. We’re truly happy to have you join our us and let yourself be the focal point of the celebration. Thank-you to all the panelists and community groups which are joining us to show-off their knowledge and skills, the festival wouldn’t be very festive without you. Thank-you to our artists and merchants for bringing their work to the festival, and taking a chance on a small fan-run event (we are working toward being a larger fan-run event, so we hope you’ll stick with us).

And thank-you to all of you, who are planning to come out and enjoy the fun! I’m excited to meet all of you; I’ll be the big, blonde guy who constantly looks concerned about something. Also I have a badge with my name, so there’s that. And while you are welcome to bring any issues you have the the Registration table, you can also track me down if you want to talk. I’ll give you as much time as I can, and if I’m in the middle of something else, I’ll at least set some time to talk with you later.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us. Otherwise I’ll see you at the Festival!

If you missed us live last night, I sat down with the gang from Northern Nerd to talk about SDCC movie trailers, and everything Pure Speculation. It’s always a good time when I get to talk with them, and you should definitely show them some subscription love if you want to stay on top of nerdiness around Edmonton.

You’ll likely see them roaming around the festival filming this and that. Make sure to say hello!

We’ve talked about the big things happening at Pure Spec: the panels, the demos, artists and vendors, and the oh-so-important parties! And you might think that would be it, we couldn’t possibly fit more in one-and-a half days of festival. Lucky for us all, you would be wrong. So here are few more things to look out for at Pure Spec this year, when you have time between panels.

Open Gaming Tables

While tabletop gaming isn’t one of our focuses any longer, it’s still an important part of nerd culture. Plus tabletop gaming gives you something to do when you need a break from the panels, or even instead of panels. Elements Games Collectibles & Apparel has graciously agreed to look after our open gaming area, and they’ll have a library of games for you try out with your friends (and possibly purchase afterward, if you like it).

As well, we’re lucky enough to have a demos for a brand new RPG by an Edmonton creator. On Saturday Adam Tuttle will be set-up in the gaming area to demo sessions of his new game Race of Man RPG. You can sit in on the Noon or 3pm session, enjoy a new game, and give Adam your feedback.

Silent Auction

Our silent auction table will be set-up in the main hall, with proceeds going to support the Pure Speculation Festival Society. We’ve assembled an impressive collection of items for you to bid on, ranging from bundles of goodies from On Spec Magazine to Star Wars and Star Trek collectibles. There’s a little something for everyone, and the silent auction is a great way to get something cool and nerdy, and support the festival at the same time. Bidding will start on Friday and cut-off at 5pm Saturday, when the winning bids will be announced.

Open Mic

We’ll have a microphone set-up in the main hall. If you are so inclined, please use it to talk nerdy to us: read a passage from your favourite sci-fi or fantasy work, read us something you’ve been working on, sing us a song, whatever you’d like to share. When deciding what to share, please do keep in mind there may very well be children present; maybe keep the f-bombs in the f-firecracker range. To show you how it’s done and as an extension of one of our panels, there will be hourly readings from the work of Zenna Henderson (if these readings pique your interest, check out the panel at 4pm on Saturday).

Concession

The venue has a beautiful kitchen available, and while we won’t be doing much in the way of cooking this year, we will have a concession running all weekend long. Besides the usual assortment of soda, chips, and candy, we’ll also have coffee, tea, some cold treats to beat the (hopefully) warm weather. And while the cereal is mostly for the Saturday Morning Cartoons, if we have any left I’m certain we could scare you up a bowl later on. Speaking of cartoons…

Saturday Morning Cartoons

This is definitely for the nerds who want to get an early start on the Festival. Join us at 8am Saturday morning in the Lounge for all-you-can eat cereal and cartoon watching. We took a poll over at the Pure Spec group on Facebook, and it looks like we’ll be watching some Gargoyles, Looney Tunes, Star Trek: The Animated Series, Animaniacs, and Clone High. Yes, some of those are not technically Saturday morning cartoons, but hey, why be picky? Time permitting, we may sneak in a surprise cartoon show or two as well. All-you-can eat cereal is $4, and includes coffee or tea. And because I know someone will ask: the cereal ends when the cartoons do (believe me, I’m sad about that, too).

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So that’s a few of the things we have going on at the Festival, that don’t involve panels. It’s all part of the free admission to the Festival, so we hope you’ll come down for an hour or all day, and bask in the warm glow of Edmonton nerdery!

If Pure Spec is nothing else, it’s a celebration of Edmonton’s nerdery. And what would a celebration be without a party? Would it be more awesome with two parties? Good, because we happen to have two parties.

Friday night, the Opening Night Party starts at 8pm in the main hall. This party features the geeky belly dance creations of Eclipse Fusion, keynote addresses from our Guests of Honour, and a high-energy lightsabre forms performance from Echo Base Temple. I’ll also yak for a bit about the festival, but hey, you can always get up and hit the cash bar around then. We’ll have some hors d’oeuvres available, and the concession will also stay open in case you get the munchies later on. This is also the perfect time to peruse the Silent Auction table and sneak in some bids.

Photo by Bastard Photography

Saturday night, the Concert Party also starts at 8pm, also in the main hall. The evening will feature a concert by Guest of Honour Vanessa Cardui, as well as a Trivia Contest with cash and other prizes. Again, there will be some closing remarks from me; see earlier note about hitting the cash bar. We’ll have more hors d’oeuvres and the concession will also be available.

We are trying something new at this year’s Pure Spec parties, and I hope it becomes an annual tradition. Conceived of by local nerd and friend of the festival Devin Bruce, Pure Spec’s very own cocktail, The Grand Nagus, will debut at out parties this year. We’ll serve both an alcohol and non- version so nobody has to miss out on the fun. You’ll have to come to the parties to find out what’s in it (you know how the Ferengi guard their trade secrets) but we promise* either version will be a delicious summer treat.

Due to the cash bar, both parties are strictly 18+ only. We’re working on making them all-ages next year, but for this year, no minors.

Short and sweet this time. So short and so sweet, I’ll be back with another post tomorrow. Talk to you then, Spectacles!

*From the Ferengi: The word “promise” is not used in any legally binding matter. Price of the drink is non-refundable.

Volunteers are the life-blood of community conventions and festivals. Look around at any of the nerd-related cons in Edmonton, whether it’s GOBfest, Animethon, KefCon, IntrigueCon or others. If you took away the volunteers, none of those events could function. The cost of having to hire employees to fill volunteer roles would make these types of events impossible for any not-for-profit group. And Pure Spec is no different.

Granted, at the smaller end of Edmonton’s nerd events we don’t have a huge volunteer footprint. But we still need them, and we still love them. Let’s face it, anyone crazy enough to come help me put on a day-and-a-half long festival of geekdom is aces in my books!

Of course it’s easy to say we love our volunteers. But we can’t just talk about it, we have to show it. So our volunteers get a chance to win some extra special swag, as well as a few items given to all the volunteers. Our volunteers also benefit from our festival-long Muffins for Minions™ program, which ensures no volunteer is without a muffin if they want one (we wouldn’t force muffins on our volunteers, that would be cruel). And throughout the rest of the year we plan to hold one or two volunteer-only events, to say thank-you and to get to know our volunteers a bit better.

So if swag, muffins, and our undying love which will outlast the sun all sound cool, you might be wondering how you can get on-board. Conveniently we have created an online form that allows you to tell us a bit about yourself, as well as when and how you’d like volunteer. We need volunteers to help out at Registration, work the concession (no cooking required), monitor panel rooms, and help out with any odd jobs that come up. Shifts are broken up into 2-hour blocks, which allows a lot of flexibility.

And if you’ve ever thought about wanting to help us out organizing events throughout the year, or even helping to organize the festival, volunteering with us is a great way to start. If I’m looking for folks to help out, I tend to start with the people who have already stepped up for us; at least then I know you’ve got some enthusiasm for what we’re doing.

The Festival draws nigh and we have stepped up a gear in our preparations. Right now I’m spending my time nailing down all the little details so everyone knows where they need to be and when, so you can all have a great time when Pure Spec rolls around.

One of the areas I’m always excited about is our Artist & Vendor area. With the festival focusing more on SF literature, I know a few folks were worried we’d have nothing but book sellers as far as the eye could see. While I might consider that a feature, not a bug, it was never my intention to turn our vendor area into one huge book sale (we may run a book sale of some sort later in the year or early next, but that’ll be its own thing).

For one thing, we still want (say it with me) the community to be involved in our vendor area, as much as any other part of the festival. And while there a few of you with your bookish wares, it’s maybe not enough to fill out the entire vendor hall. For another, we never want to exclude local artists and crafts-folk from taking part. Not only do you crafty types make some truly interesting and awesome stuff, but we want to provide another avenue to get your creations in front of your fellow nerds.

And so you will see a great mix of new and returning vendors and artists this year. Local crafty people like Apple Pi Designs, bokchoi, and Bohemian Apothecary are joining us for the first time, along with artists Chris Moet and Angela Dawntreader. CC’s Fun Fashion is joining us with pop culture inspired fashion and accessories, and Elements Games, Collectibles, and Apparel is bringing the gaming goodness along with some more pop culture wares. We’re excited to have local writer’s group Cult of Pain coming out to show off their members’ publications, and equally excited to have USS Bonaventure returning to represent the Star Trek and sci-fi nerdery. If you’re bringing your kids, you’ll want to stop by Dragon Paw Lady Face Painting; even if you are attending kid-less, stop by and grab a sparkly tattoo!

And yes, okay, we’ll have plenty for the booklovers as well. EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing and Tyche Books are both returning this year. They’ve been big supporters of the festival for many years, and we love to see them come back. But we’re also joined by Burning Water Magazine (Edit: Burning Water is not able to join us this year), coming out to their first Pure Spec, as well as Shae’s Books, with a selection of artwork, second-hand SF books, and collector comics. Variant Edition Comics will also join us again this year as a double threat; you’ll find them in the vending hall and also hosting a few of our panels.

Back to the beginning; On Spec at Pure Speculation 2005

Last but certainly not least, On Spec Magazine will join us again this year. On Spec Magazine has, for weal or woe, been with the festival since our first one back in 2005. That should have scared them away (it almost did me), but they not only persisted in supporting us, but their Editor-in-Chief Diane Walton came on board to help us organize. If you enjoy any of our panels this weekend, there’s a good chance it was her idea!

We’re excited and a little humbled that the festival has the support of these fantastic merchants, pop culture groups, and artists. I hope you’ll spend some time during the festival browsing through our vendor room, and maybe snagging something that catches your eye. Just don’t buy that book I want, okay?

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EDIT: Since posting this, Metro Cinema has come on board as a vendor and will be at the festival to hand out their programs and talk about their upcoming season. As well, welcome local artisans Random Array with their wonderful Harry Potter and pop culture jewelry and oddities.

Tomorrow, Friday, July 7 at midnight is our deadline for both panel submissions and vendor applications, so if you’ve been holding out to the last minute, your moment has come! I’d love to see a few more of each sneak in under the wire, so don’t be shy.

We are still taking volunteers, however. If you’d like to volunteer a few hours on either Friday or Saturday (or both), please fill out our volunteer form and we’ll put you to work. You’ll be in line for some great volunteer swag, and entitled to all the benefits of our Muffins for Minions program.